


The Henry Morgan Puzzle

by MaeveBran



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-02-28 12:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2732462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/pseuds/MaeveBran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post ep for "The Man in the Killer Suit". Jo puts the little clues that Henry has dropped, over the season so far, together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Detective Jo Martinez watched the cab take her pseudo partner away. She was really curious about what he was hiding. She knew he'd confide in her, eventually, but she couldn't help but want the story now. She hadn't been this fascinated by a man since she'd met her husband over a decade ago. It scared her that the first man to catch her full attention since her husband's death was so mysterious. It may explain why she was so determined to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Some of Henry's statements the couple months reverberated in her mind. 

_“What about death?”_ she'd asked after he'd told her he'd been down on the bridge ledge.  
 _“A rather more complicated relationship,”_ he'd answered.

_“How'd you know to do that?”_ she'd asked after he'd made Paul throw up the overdose of drugs.  
 _“You live long enough and you learn a thing or two,”_ he'd answered.

_“Henry Morgan, having a drink with the old gang? I never thought I'd live to see the day,”_ Lucas had exclaimed when Henry had shown up to the bar after he'd been freed from captivity.  
 _“Well, you live long enough, anything is possible,”_ had been Henry's reply. 

Not to mention that he said he'd been a physician and it wasn't listed in the research she'd done on him. And sometimes his history lectures felt like he'd been at the events he described. The rant on the history of the brownstones and pointing out that the professor’s wife had family resemblance to the original owners' of that one.

The most suspicious one of all was that he'd had a copy of the original case notes for the Jack the Ripper case. His explanation of studying the case because it was the first case where Medical Examiners were used didn't sound right. He'd taken one look at the body of their Mary Kelly and known right away it mirrored Jack the Ripper's murder without referring to the notes.

No, the pieces of the Henry Morgan puzzle weren't adding up to an ordinary man. She wasn't sure what the puzzle was looking like but she had a feeling she had all the pieces needed but the picture wasn't one she was looking for.

Then the last thing Henry had said before he'd gotten into the cab hit her. 

_“No, your brand of eccentricity would take years to perfect,”_ she had laughingly accused him when he'd tried to tell her he was really Hank Morgan from Ohio.  
 _“How about centuries?”_ he'd returned as he waved down the cab.

Somehow, all those statements suddenly made sense. The explanation made sense with his behavior but it was unbelievable. It made no rational sense. Things like that didn't actually happen. But it was the only explanation that made sense of Dr. Henry Morgan.

“He's immortal,” Jo said aloud. “That son of a bitch.”

Jo hurried to her car and threw it into drive. She'd be only minutes behind him when he got home. Hopefully, Abe wouldn't be upset by the delay of their meal while she bearded the lion in his den.

That brought up Abe. Who was he to Henry and did he know? She thought about the things she'd seen between Henry and Abe when they didn't know she was there. Henry with his arm draped around Abe's shoulder when she'd come to return the pocket watch. Henry leaning rather closely over Abe's shoulder looking at a piece of paper.

Then there was the way Abe worried over Henry and Henry ordered Abe about. And their rather difficult and stilted explanation of how they actually knew each other. It wasn't Uncle and Nephew, honorary or real. It was almost like father and son. Only it seemed that Henry was the father.  
If Henry was immortal, than it would makes sense that Henry was Abe's father. Henry had a lot of explaining to do.


	2. Chapter 2

Jo had just found a parking space a few blocks from the antique shop when her phone rang.

“Detective Martinez,” Jo answered.

“Jo, you gotta get back to the station,” her partner, Detective Mike Hanson said, with a slight snicker in his voice.

“Why?” Jo asked.

“Doc's just got arrested,” Hanson said.

“What?” she exclaimed. “What for?”

“Public Indecency,” Hanson wasn't keeping the hints of laughter from his voice. “He was caught swimming naked in the East River.”

“I'm on my way,” Jo said as she hung up the phone. She started her car and turned on the flashing lights before speeding back to the station.

Her mind raced as she drove. She wondered if this had anything to do with the immortality of Doctor Morgan. Otherwise there was no reason that she could think of for the very proper Medical Examiner to be skinny dipping in the river. Particularly not in this weather. It was December after all.

_“Are we going to talk about it?”_ Jo asked as she walked Henry to the elevator. _“You swimming naked in the river?”_

_“I'd rather not,”_ Henry had said as he ducked into the elevator.

Jo let him go. Now was not the time to force him to confide in her. If he was ever going to talk about it, it had to be on his own time. Though if it happened again, she may just try to force a confession from him, she was an NYPD Detective after all and should be able to get a simple confession.

A couple days later, Jo found herself confronting Dr. Henry Morgan over another naked swim. While he had a point about not being completely naked this time, Jo knew there was a deeper issue. She tried get him to confide again, but when he refused she had to concede that maybe the Lieutenant had a point. Henry needed professional help.


	3. Chapter 3

By the end of the week, Jo had come to the conclusion that she was going to have to force Henry to talk. The way Henry had reacted to killing his stalker made the conversation rather urgent. She talked to Abe quietly, while the CSIs finished up. She waited for Hanson and the other cops to leave and then approached Henry again.  
“Henry,” Jo said once Abe had locked the door to the shop behind the last CSI. “We need to talk.”

“Not now, Jo,” Henry said, as he turned towards Abe.

“Henry,” Abe said. “She's right. There are things you two need to straighten out. Last week would have been better but you need to tell her tonight.”

“I can't fight both of you,” Henry sighed. “Not tonight.” He looked around the shop. “Not here and not in the laboratory.”

“Upstairs,” Abe said. “I'll put the kettle on.”

“I'd rather have some McCallum,” Henry said.

“I know,” Abe said as he passed by his father and squeezed his shoulder. “But that's why it'll be tea.”

Henry and Jo followed the seemingly older man upstairs. Henry settled in an arm chair and Jo took a seat as close to him as she could on one of the couches. He sat there, staring at his hands until Abe brought in the tea pot and cups.

Abe poured and handed Jo a cup and saucer and then handed the same to Henry. Abe looked at his father. Henry gazed back. The message had been understood even without words being exchanged.

“I'm off to bed,” Abe said. “Call if he gets recalcitrant, Jo.”

“I'm going to do it,” Henry said flatly.

“Good,” Abe said as he patted Henry's shoulder again. He'd like to hug and kiss his father a proper goodnight but until the old man had told Jo everything that was a comfort that would be denied to both Morgan men.

Henry sipped his tea as he watched his son ascend the stairs to the bed rooms. Where to start, Henry wondered. The beginning, was usually the good place, but which beginning.

“Henry,” Jo asked, as she set her tea cup in the saucer and set that on the coffee table. “Are you immortal?”

Henry looked at her, his shock plainly written on his face. “What?”

“You heard me,” Jo said.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I'm a detective,” she said. “Things about you weren't adding up. Then when I thought about you being an immortal, suddenly those things made sense.”

“How long have you known?” Henry asked.

“Since you got in the cab after the Dwight Dziak case,” Jo said.

“So you caught the statement about centuries,” Henry replied. He should have known better than to say it but it had been the perfect opportunity to test how she'd take his confession without involving the men in white coats.

“That was the last puzzle piece,” she admitted. “So since I know, want to talk about it?”

“Want to, no,” Henry said. “Need to is probably a better way of putting it.”

Jo nodded. She got that. She didn't want to talk about the man she'd killed or her husband but sometimes she needed to talk about them.

“Remember my bullet wound?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “It's not like the ones these days.”

“That's because it is from a black powder pistol,” Henry said. “That was the first time I died.”

“When was that?” Jo asked. She'd leave aside the detail of it being the 'first time' he died, for now.

“April 7, 1814,” Henry answered. “I was 35. I've been 35 ever since.”

“Two hundred years?” Jo asked in awe. No wonder he seemed to know everything and it's history.

“I was born September 19, 1779,” he said. “So technically I'm 235. But yes, it has been two hundred years since that first death.”

“You keep mentioning a 'first death',” Jo said as she picked up the tea cup and saucer.

“I die,” Henry explained. “It just doesn't take. I've died many times.”

“And where does naked in the river come into it?” Jo asked.

“Every time I die, I resurface in a close body of water,” Henry said, a faint blush crept up his cheeks. Two hundred and thirty- five and he still got embarrassed talking about being naked. “Always naked. I don't know why or what happens to my clothes. But if something falls out of my pocket it gets left behind.”

“Your pocketwatch,” Jo said.

“Both times you found it,” he confirmed.

“Both times?” she asked. She thought and then it came to her. “That was you in the taxi. The one who made the desperate scratches to get out. That's how you knew the cab might not still be on Manhattan.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed.

“How many times, Henry?” Jo asked.

“That I've died?” he asked. She nodded. “I'd have to consult my journals. Too many for comfort.”

“How many in the last four months then?” she pushed.

“Counting the cab and the subway accident, six,” he said.

“Six times you've died in the time we've know each other,” Jo shook her head. She knew it was more than just the two she'd guessed at but six was a larger number than she'd thought. “You did fall off the roof of Grand Central, didn't you.”

“Yes,” was all he could say. If he thought about all those deaths he'd never get through the rest of the story.

Jo set her cup and saucer on the table again. She got up and perched on the arm of his chair and put an arm around him.

“Does it hurt?” she asked quietly.

“Every time,” Henry said. “Some methods more than others. I have them ranked if you want to know which are the most painful ways to die.”

“You've died from aconite,” Jo said, as she suddenly realized why he had set her hand on fire in that garage during their first case. “That's why you said 'but trust me, aconite is a terrible way to die' isn't it?”

“I have,” he said. “I must confess, I did during that case too. I couldn't wait for the tox screen so I took some of the victim's blood home and had Abe inject me so I could figure it out.” He took a sip of tea while she tried to process that. “We were just coming back from the river, from my awakening, when we found you searching the place.”

“I don't even know where to start with that,” she said honestly. “Who is Abe to you?”

“Abe's name is Abraham Morgan,” Henry said. “He's my son.”

“Your son,” Jo said. She had guessed as much but it was still startling to here it confirmed.

“I met Abigail when she was a nurse in World War II. The concentration camps had just been liberated,” he said as he began to picture that moment when the two most important people had come into his life. “I had been treating wounded and was walking back to the mess tent for a break and there she was, holding this baby that had been found in the camps. Long story short, Abigail and I fell in love, married and together we adopted Abraham.”

“When did she die?” Jo asked.

“She didn't, though she may have by now,” Henry said. “I told you she left me and she did. After thirty- three years of marriage, she left me in 1988, because she was getting confused for my mother when we were together. She couldn't take it and it was harder and harder to keep my secret with her around. Abe was grown and married and divorced by then. So Abigail left. She said to help protect me, but I think she just didn't want me to watch her grow old.”

Jo stood up and pulled Henry in to her arms. This was worse than she thought. He had been abandoned by his wife because he couldn't die. 

“But that wasn't as bad as Nora,” he said into her shoulder.

“Nora?” Jo asked. Who the hell was Nora?

“My first wife,” he said. He pulled away and went to the kitchen. Jo retook her seat. She felt this wasn't going to be an easy story or a short one. When he returned he was carrying a bottle of whiskey. “I don't care what my son said. If I'm going to be telling the whole sordid tale, I'm having a drink.”

Henry poured a generous measure of the amber liquid into his tea. He took a swallow and continued his story.

“Nora was distraught over my death,” he said. “To be fair, I had died in the middle of the Atlantic on a slave ship and it had taken me almost the full year of her mourning to make my way back to her.”

“The watch,” Jo exclaimed. “It was yours to begin with, wasn't it?”

“It was,” Henry said. “Anyway, Nora wanted me to tell her how I had come back to her. I wanted to tell someone my secret.”

“You told her and it went badly,” Jo guessed.

“I was locked up in Charring Cross Asylum, at her request,” he said bitterly. “There was a new treatment. They called it hydrotherapy. Today we call it waterboarding.”

“Oh my God,” Jo gasped.

“I've also been hung, had my blood drained, and been dissected, “ Henry said. “Since my body disappears at the moment of my death, I've been alive for all of it.”

“No wonder you didn't want to tell me,” Jo said.

“I've had problems trusting people,” he admitted. He drained his cup of the tea and whiskey.

“I think you've had quite the day,” Jo said as she walked over to him. “You need to go to bed.”

“There's more,” Henry said. “You should know about one of the other deaths.”

“It can wait,” Jo said.

“If I don't tell you now,” Henry said. “I may never get the courage to tell you again.”

“Then tell me,” Jo said calmly, dreading what else he might say.

“You know that you told me if I'd had confronted Mark Bentley, I might have been seriously hurt,” Henry started.

“Bentley killed you?” Jo asked.

“He left me for dead, after stabbing me and I tackled him down the basement stairs,” Henry said as he splashed more whiskey into his teacup and took a drink. “He stepped on my back, which had been broken in the fall. You were coming to search the basement and Adam, my stalker, found me first.”

“Now he's dead too,” Jo said trying to comfort Henry.

“No, he's not,” Henry said.

“Then who did you kill?” Jo asked.

“Clark Walker,” Henry said. “A man my stalker set up to take the fall.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“When the phone rang after they took the body out this evening,” he said as he drained the whiskey in the teacup. “He called to taunt me about doing something new after 200 years. He directed me to look at a cab across the street. He leaned forward and I saw him.”

“Did you know him?” Jo asked.

“Dr. Farber,” Henry answered.

“Your shrink?” Jo exclaimed. 

“Yes, and he's killed me twice,” Henry said.

“Twice?” Jo asked, her shock making her slow to put the pieces together.

“Once in the Frenchman's basement,” Henry said. “He slit my throat so my body would disappear before you found me. It was to keep our secret.”

“Our secret?” Jo asked.

“He's immortal too,” Henry said. “Or so he claimed. I didn't believe it until he shot himself in the head while behind the wheel of that cab. He disappeared and the cab went into the river. I tried to get out but couldn't. So I drowned and resurfaced only to face indecent exposure charges.”

Jo processed the whole story, stunned. The one thing she could grasp out of the story was that Henry had been having a tougher time then even she could imagine. She once again wrapped her arms around him. Henry sat stiffly for a moment before he unbent enough to lean into the comfort she was offering.

“I'm sorry,” Jo said after a moment.

“Not your fault,” Henry said. He soaked up the physical contact this time. He knew he should shrug out of her arms, but it had been a hell of a long time since anyone other than Abe had touched him. After revealing so much of his story and soul to her he felt the need to be close to someone. Not someone but this woman. Just a few more minutes and then Henry knew he could rebuild that wall around himself.

“Come on, Henry,” Jo said as she dropped her arms and stood up. “It's time to get you to bed.”

Henry looked up at her, his face a mixture of relief and surprise.

“I didn't mean it like that,” she said as she reached out a hand to drag him from the chair.

“I didn't think you did,” Henry said as he stood beside her. 

“Are you going to be alright, if I leave now?” she asked.

“I'll be fine,” Henry said.

Henry walked her down the stairs and to the side door, so they didn't have to walk through the shop. He wasn't ready to go there or by the stairs to his laboratory.

“Call me, if you need someone,” she said as she hugged him one last time.

“I will,” he promised.

She slipped out the door and he watched her get into her car. 

Henry sighed as he climbed the stairs again. It had been a hell of a night but he felt better having told her his story. He might not be fine now but he had friends who would help him get there. Eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> The bits in italics are quotes from actual episodes. I did not write those. Those are the work of the talented writing staff.


End file.
